May be of no help, but here goes...Sometimes, with Windows software, when an application is launched it can immediately disappear. I have seen this with Outlook. Upon further inspection, using Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del keys simultaneously) you can see that the application is actually running (sort by name and look for something called Thunderbird or similar). If the task is present in the list, then it is running just fine, just not much use without the interface. This can be caused by a number of things, the application startup/******** properties being corrupt.
Paul